Product Details

• Actors: Son House, Bukka White
• Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: YAZOO
• DVD Release Date: June 13, 2000
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004TJF1
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #146,485 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

From the back cover

SON HOUSE

1. Taj Mahal introduction       
2. Death Letter Blues       
3. John the Revelator       
4. Preaching the Blues       
5. I Want to Live So God Can Use Me       
BUKKA WHITE       

6. Taj Mahal introduction       
7. Aberdeen Mississippi Blues       
8. Mama Don't Allow       
9. Piano Boogie       
10. Gibson Hill       
11. Poor Boy       
12. World Boogie       

Eddie "Son" House and Booker T. Washington "Bukka" White were giant figures in the annals of American music. Both were passionate purveyors of their native Mississippi Delta music and of slide guitar. Both were seminal figures, not only through their association with legendary blues pioneer Charley Patton, but also in the strong influence Mississippi blues has had on this century's music from Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters, all the way to Eric Clapton.

In the early part of this century, Mississippi still retained characteristics of a frontier state, physically, socially and politically. The Delta region, which had only recently been cleared out of the wilderness in the late 19th century, was a rich, fertile area that attracted black labor to sharecrop on the burgeoning cotton plantations. Jim Crow laws, expressly aimed at tying blacks to the lowest level of society and to the plantation system, left them little mobility or redress against the social order. Amidst this backdrop, a new type of secular music was evolving in black culture and taking center stage. Chiefly played on the recently popularized guitar, the blues quickly displaced most earlier styles and became the dominant medium for black musical expression and entertainment. It spread through Mississippi like a high water flood.

SON HOUSE

Son House was born in Lyons, Mississippi, in 1902 and raised in this blues-rich environment. As a young man he was deeply influenced by the Baptist church and thought about a career as a preacher. But, in his own words, the women and the whiskey would not let him pray. House at first scorned blues, but in 1926 a chance encounter with a bluesman named James McCoy impressed him enough to embark on a career as a blues musician. In 1930 he met Charley Patton, the most famous blues performer in Mississippi, and was invited by Patton to accompany him on his next recording session for Paramount Records. In May, 1930, Son House set out for the company's studios in Grafton, Wisconsin, and immortality.

Son House has always been reckoned one of the greatest of all Delta bluesmen and the nine selections he recorded in 1930 reveal him at the height of his powers. His deep, dynamic vocals convey a power and expressiveness rarely matched. He uses his bottleneck slide guitar style to both carry the melody line and to play riffs and fills. Robert Johnson was pointedly influenced by House and closely copied his accompaniment of "Walking Blues" as well as incorporating major riffs from "Preaching the Blues" and "My Black Mama." Muddy Waters, too, has called House one of his greatest influences.

BUKKA WHITE

Being entranced by the music he heard around him, Bukka White learned to play guitar and became very attracted to the glamorous lifestyle of blues musicians. Bukka developed his own style using a bottleneck and a percussive pick-strum technique that resembled that of his idol, Charley Patton. Bukka was impressed by the reputation Patton had throughout the Delta, and the admiration and excitement his music generated. As the environment for blues was primarily bars, brothels, and gambling dens, bluesmen were viewed by most, however, as disreputable figures, even as they utilized the musicians' talents for a much needed respite from the hard grind of daily life in rural Mississippi.

By 1930 Bukka was already a first-rate musician when he recorded four brilliant selections that stand today as masterpieces of slide guitar playing and early gospel singing. He recorded extensively in 1937 and again in 1940 when he premiered his "sky songs," a powerful body of self-penned compositions with dark overtones and great expressiveness. In a way, these sessions marked the final flowering of the first generation of Delta bluesmen, as the upcoming war created inexorable cultural and social change.

Product Description

Studio: E1 Entertainment Release Date: 09/16/2003 Run time: 60 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The Snake that lays an egg ain't poisonous...", December 27, 2000

By 

Matthew Minch (South Bend, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Son House & Bukka White - Masters of the Country Blues (DVD)

After viewing this DVD several times I will say that I am not only impressed with Son House the musician, but also with the man.

The mumbled monologues and inaudible introductions by Son House almost made me feel sorry for him, not in a negative way, but in a way that I wanted to do something for him, to help him have more courage. The more I viewed him and was able to decipher the words I realized his forthrightness in speaking this way to an audience who was so foreign to him and I was overwhelmed with his honesty and sincerity.

The music itself is spellbinding and reaches the very heart and soul of an open-minded listener. The beat he taps with his shoe while playing creates an almost otherwordly aura around this music that I believe to be of the deepest expression men have ever conveyed through sound. This beat is at the root of all popular music today, although this expression is unparalleled. How is it that an uneducated man from an oppressed group of people can be so wise and able to communicate through music this wisdom? He had true wisdom which doesn't come from knowledge, it comes from truth, or as House puts it, "from above."

All this I gathered from his monologues but I don't want to take away from the pure simplicity of Son House's music. Yet it is hard for me to understand the music, being a white man in another world from House, separated in this regard but united as men. I can see the lines on his face and the pure humanity of his words and I struggle to understand the deep expression of his music and my love for it.

Son House had quit playing the guitar completely for years and was working regular jobs when he was rediscovered by men with an interest in exploring America's musical direction and preserving the blues.

Anyone with similar motives should look into this DVD, or anyone that simply loves the blues. The segments of Bukka White are a testimony to his influence and greatness. This is the blues at it's raw core, without electricity or accompaniment, gloriously simple but simply glorious!

In this age of technology, there's mass media, quick entertainment and television politicians, it's hard to know just who or what to believe anymore. Listen to the words of Son House, "I love a snake if I wasn't scared of him, but I can't trust him. Somebody said the snake that lays an egg ain't poisonous, but I don't trust none of 'em, I don't care how many eggs he lay..."

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two of the best., August 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Masters of the Country Blues [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a transfer to video of an old TV program. Son House and Bukka White perform before a live Seattle studio audience.

Both are excellent, of course, but Son House's time on stage is something strange and special. After finishing a blues number he'll get to his feet, shakily lay his guitar down, and perform an unaccompanied spiritual. But before he starts he delivers odd mumbled monologues - alomost inaudable - about how he hasn't left God, he is still pious even though he sings the blues, etc. The audience doesn't know quite what to make of all this. Son House was a man with a lot on his mind.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing like seeing real, old time bluesmen in action..., April 27, 2005

By 

Chet L. Young - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Son House & Bukka White - Masters of the Country Blues (DVD)

Blues does not get any more genuine than this! These are black-and-white performances, filmed in Seattle in 1965, showing both Son House and Booker White(by all accounts he hated being referred to as "Bukka") at the height of their powers.

Son plays his two best songs, "Death Letter Blues" and "Preachin' the Blues", as well as two a capella gospel numbers. It's incredible to watch his transformation from a frail, shy older man(during his introductions to the songs) to a raging, masterful performer, pounding his National guitar and singing like you've never heard anyone sing before.

Booker's set is a bit longer, opening with his anthem "Aberdeen, Mississippi". Younger than Son, he tears through the performance at full throttle, singing in a gravelly voice and strumming propulsively(the train-like momentum is THE hallmark of Booker's music). The highlights for me are "Mama Don't Allow" and "Poor Boy"...I'm in heaven when I hear songs like this.

Interestingly, the small audience(you don't see them, but it's evident that only a handful of people are present) applauds Son, but not Booker. I've always wondered why this was. At any rate, get this DVD! If you're a country blues fan and you haven't seen it, you're really missing out.